Three Must-Read Articles

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Every Friday we select a handful of in-depth articles we think are worth a bit of your valuable weekend time, either because they peel back the layers on a compelling business story, or somehow make us look at business in a different light.

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Why philanthropy is good for business. During Doug Conant’s decade-long tenure as Campbell Soup CEO, the company launched philanthropic initiatives tied to childhood obesity and hunger in communities where Campbell operated major facilities. “I observed that the more we leveraged our business resources to deliver social value to the communities around us, the more engaged our employees became and the better we performed in the marketplace,” he writes in this commentary piece for McKinsey. Now serving as chairman of CECP, an organization that helps companies “achieve progress on societal challenges,” Mr. Conant makes the case for the business benefits of philanthropy. When Vodafone, in 2003, teamed with a Kenyan affiliate to bring mobile-banking to rural areas, the company not only provided a public good, it opened up a new business. IBM Corp. employees became involved in a program that put teams of experts into communities worldwide to solve local issues, where they achieved a level of professional development the company “could not have purchased through the market.”

Nate Silver on teaching yourself statistics.Harvard Business Review’s Walter Frick sits down with data science “poster child” Nate Silver to talk about what it takes for an ordinary executive to acquire statistical literacy. Mr. Silver, the brains behind the FiveThirtyEight political polling blog which correctly predicted the winner of the 2008 presidential election in 49 of the 50 states, tells Frick that applied experience trumps academic experience. “I mean the thing that’s toughest to teach is the intuition for what are big questions to ask. That intellectual curiosity … where you see a data set and you have at least a first approach on how much signal there is.” Students of the statistical arts should prepare to make some dumb mistakes on the way. “But yes, people who are motivated on their own, I think, are always going to do better than people who are fed a diet of things,” Mr. Silver says.

Qatar’s World Cup ‘slaves.’ When the Fédération Internationale de Football Association awarded Qatar rights to host the 2022 FIFA World Cup, critics cried corruption. How could the tiny emirate host one of the world’s most popular sporting events? How could players compete in a place where summer temperatures hit 122 degrees Fahrenheit? And what’s up with that alcohol ban? But as the Guardian reports, the reality of the decision is much, much worse. Migrant workers, many working on a “huge World Cup infrastructure project,” are dying at a frightful rate—at least 44 died between early June and August. One group estimates that at the current rate, 4,000 migrant workers will die “before a ball is kicked.” The Guardian’s Pete Pattisson says poor working and living conditions, nonpayment of wages and confiscation of work papers by employers have left many migrants in a state of “modern-day slavery.” “The allegations suggest a chain of exploitation leading from poor Nepalese villages to Qatari leaders,” Pattisson continues. “The overall picture is of one of the richest nations exploiting one of the poorest to get ready for the world’s most popular sporting tournament.”

Real estate industry veteran Diane Morefield, EVP and CFO of Strategic Hotels & Resorts, Inc., discusses the challenges she has undertaken throughout her career in both finance and operational roles and her management style. While viewing herself as a “conservative voice” in an industry known for risk-taking, she says it's important to take risks when it comes to building one's career.